Universe Next Door
by displacerghost
Summary: A certain evil device malfunctions disastrously, forcing Megamind, Roxanne, and Metro Man to work together in a world that doesn't feel exactly...right. (AU, MegaRox)
1. Rebound

_Note: I came to this most wonderful of fandoms back in February, just in time for Set's hobbit-style birthday celebration week and so I'm celebrating mine the same way! Every day I'll be updating this story with a new chapter, to be completed on August 2nd. Chapter Six is my favorite, so I'm scheduling things this way to post that one on my birthday, July 30th! Once the final chapter goes up, I'll add a link on Tumblr to the Tumblr post that gave me the idea for this. I am much excite! I hope you all enjoy this, my friends! :D_

 _Great Aunt Rachel belongs to Setepenre-set and is borrowed with their permission._

* * *

"Are you two fighting again?" Wayne asks her around a mouthful of sandwich. Roxanne barely hears him. Her eyes track the black-robed blue-skinned figure through the crowd streaming out of the hall and heading down the path towards the far classrooms.

"Hmm?"

They brought their lunch outside today, despite the heat, and are sitting together under the big oak tree at the far edge of the cobblestone path which led into the kitchens. Roxanne hadn't been able to bring herself to settle down in the Great Hall, not with awareness of Megamind pulling at her consciousness. He should have been beside her, and instead he's sitting with the other Slytherins and she feels his absence like a missing limb.

The little frosted cake from her lunch sits untouched at the edge of her tray. She always saved it for him. She'd grabbed it today without even thinking, too consumed with maintaining her composure.

"Yesterday you didn't even show up for Astronomy and when I asked Megs why you didn't sit with us in Charms he got all huffy and went kinda purple and wouldn't talk to me."

If Wayne didn't shut the hell up, she is likely going to smash the cake in his face and to hell with composure.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says through her teeth, trying for calm and sounding coldly furious.

Wayne responds with a low whistle. "That bad, huh?"

Her cheeks flush. Roxanne takes a breath, trying to rein in her temper and aware that she is failing miserably.

"'Cause...the last time you two got all prickly about each other I almost flunked Potions, and we've got that project—"

She turns back to him, fixing him with a glare and Wayne swallows the rest of his sentence. "I _know_ about the bloody project, okay? Maybe if you studied on your own for once instead of spending all your free time at Quidditch you'd finally actually learn something."

There is a pause, Wayne staring back at her, infuriatingly unruffled by her outburst. He arches one perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Want me to talk to him?"

Roxanne shuts her eyes. "There's nothing to talk about. We're not fighting. Everything's _fine_."

Wayne seems to get the hint at last, and drops the subject. They gather their things and drift into the crowd, following the flow of bodies through the halls. Wayne pats her on the shoulder, awkwardly, before splitting off. Roxanne continues on to Charms alone.

It's sweet of Wayne to offer, even if she doesn't appreciate it. At least he still puts with her.

Talking to Megamind isn't going to help because it's not Megamind's fault.

She's lost her best friend in the world, and the only one to blame is herself.

* * *

At the train station, the first time three years ago, Roxanne had felt very out of place and out of her depth; very unsupported. She felt like she was walking over thin ice, like any moment everything would go wrong and come crashing down around her. Tightly clutched in one hand, she had the note from her Great Aunt on what she might expect but Great Aunt Rachel was old like dinosaurs and Roxanne _really_ doubted that what she remembered would be of use. It was more comfort than anything; evidence that she wasn't entirely alone, not entirely—

"Hello. Are you going to Hogwarts, too?" Roxanne had turned slowly and found herself staring a boy around her age and height, with an enormous head and bright green eyes and a friendly smile. He was _blue_. She blinked, and glanced down at the note. There was nothing in there about blue people.

"Um. Yes. But I'm not...really sure what I'm doing. She says platform nine and three quarters, but—" Roxanne looked around again, at the crowds of business people in suits. Professional grown ups walking briskly here and there. None of this seemed like magic.

The boy clapped his hands in delight. "Yes! That's Hogwarts. Here, it's this way."

Roxanne followed him through the crowd, pushing her cart of luggage and books along in front of her, until he stopped at the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten, and turned to beam at her.

"The Warden told me—"

"The _who_?"

He dropped his eyes, scuffing the toe of his boot against the ground. "The, ah—he's kind of my guardian, at the orphanage? Where I live. Anyway—" He brightened again, determinedly she thought. "Anyway, he says you just run at the wall."

Roxanne eyed the stone skeptically. She'd known him for all of two seconds but there was something very...open, about this boy. She didn't think he was trying to trick her.

Watching her expression he said, "It's easy, I'll show you."

She'd hesitated, just a little, at the thought of being left alone out here, alone again in the midst of all these strangers—her stomach fluttered unpleasantly.

The boy smiled at her, softly, and stepped close, aligning his cart beside hers.

"Here. Take my hand. We'll go together. Ready?"

They stepped through the magic together.

"See?" he said, turning to her with a grin. "I told you."

"Thank you. Um. My name's Roxanne," she said, and carefully let go of his hand.

"Lovely to meet you, Roxanne. I'm Megamind."

On the train, he told her all the stories he'd heard from the Warden about Hogwarts and the Wizarding World, about Sorting and the Houses and all the classes he wanted to take. Listening to this animated discussion, drawn in with questions despite herself, she soon found herself in the middle of a heated debate about which world events had been magic in nature or not. He was _smart_. But more than that, he listened to her points and didn't hesitate or get angry if she was right.

They hadn't ended up in the same House and she'd been terrified all over again, for a little while, but it worked out anyway. He was, in Roxanne's quiet opinion, smarter than anyone in her House, anyway. No one mocked her for being his friend. Some of them were actually even jealous.

Roxanne had found someone she could _argue_ with. Someone whose wit matched hers, whose thinking complimented her own.

They spent the first Christmas there at the school. Her family had gone on a trip for the holiday, and she wasn't invited. And the strange this was that as much as that hurt...she was _glad_ to be here instead. Megamind taught her to play wizard's chess.

Roxanne gave him Great Aunt Rachel's address when the school year was over, in case he wanted to write her. Then hugged him, there on the platform, brief and hard, before turning her back and ducking her head and dragging her luggage along behind her.

(She would not cry, she would _not_ —this wasn't goodbye—he wouldn't be like all her other so called friends, he was _different_ , this was real—)

When the first owl arrives at her Great Aunt's, it's carrying more than a letter—he'd sent along the whole magic chessboard, and the poor owl spends the summer hauling the thing back and forth between them, as well as letters and books to be shared.

The second year they befriend Wayne, first out of pity and necessity more than anything else—he was flunking hard in several subjects and the Headmaster approached Megamind to tutor him. The Scotts paid him for it.

Wayne wasn't actually all that bad, beneath the white teeth and perfect hair and general air of good-natured hammy obliviousness. He invited them to his place for Christmas. Everything was high cathedral ceilings and shiny gold and thick, plush carpet. The closet was bigger than the entire second floor of Roxanne's house. _Only three swimming pools_ , Wayne said, while she and Megamind exchange a wide-eyed look.

The next year the two of them stay at Hogwarts for the holiday, and it feels like they have the whole school to themselves. It had been—at first, before she'd ruined everything—the best Christmas of Roxanne's life.

She'd spent all summer on his present, and his face when he opens the gift sends her heart lurching. She'd pestered Great Aunt Rachel into teaching her to crochet, just so she could make it for him. It was a beanie, black with blue lightning bolts all over and on the front she'd added the word _WIZZARD_ and enchanted it to stretch and fit him comfortably, not too tight or constricting. She'd used the softest material she could find. The thing felt like a cloud.

Megamind lifted it out of the wrapping paper, staring in awe.

"You can wear it even in the Muggle world," she said. "Because they'll think it's a reference to Terry Pratchett. Which it _is_ , really. Just not only."

Megamind looked at her and drew a tight breath. "I love it. Roxanne, this is— _perfect_."

He'd hand-made her gift, too—a pair of hair clips, carved to look like ravens, with polished blue stones inset for their eyes. "For your, um—'cause you know, you're always—" Megamind stammered, and when she looked up at him he swept his hands across his face in the gesture she used to push her bangs out of her eyes. His cheeks were tinged with color.

They'd gone to Hogsmeade, for the first time, each wearing their new gifts. They'd listened to music and walked through the snowy streets. Megamind used some of his money from tutoring to buy gifts for the others at his orphanage. Roxanne spent far too much money on extravagant things she knew Great Aunt Rachel would love. They had candy for dinner.

Then Roxanne had kissed him.

And it was a bit like the end of the world.

 _Her_ world, anyway, the one framed with logic and organization, the one which followed a _reliable routine_. A routine in which Megamind featured, quite prominently. You can't just get rid of your best friend because you had a _weak moment_ in the falling snow and she _knew_ it was all her fault but she _wanted_ to blame him, she wanted to so very badly.

The way he'd _smiled_ at her, and taken her hand, and pointed at the shooting star.

 _Make a wish_.

How was she supposed to have resisted _that_?

Megamind's fingers were tight around hers and she'd felt like there were stars in his eyes, and that stupid warm feeling had swelled within her until she thought she'd burst—

So she'd kissed him. Twice.

Once on the cheek, while he was still looking up at the stars. Megamind's skin had been cool and soft under her lips and he'd sucked in a breath and turned toward her, eyes wide and round and—and she'd brought her free hand up to his other cheek, holding his face, and leaned in and pressed her lips against his.

Megamind had looked so _stunned_ , blue cheeks flushed the most gorgeous shade of lavender and his eyes had been so dark, their breath frosting in the cold air between them, snowflakes stuck in his hat.

He tasted like candy, because that's what they'd been eating, sitting at the big wooden table with their backs to a corner in the open room. Bright sparkling lights and music so loud it vibrated the air and they'd been—they'd been eating something like hot chocolate soup with big fluffy clouds of marshmallow floating in it, all sprinkled with cinnamon.

(This...this is right, isn't it?)

She remembers—

Roxanne remembers powdered sugar and cinnamon dusted over the rich chocolate...and marshmallows...and candied cherries. Megamind had ordered it—she'd always known he had a sweet tooth...doughnuts and cookies and coffee so sweet it tasted like caffeinated chocolate milk.

(...This is _right_ , isn't it? Why does it feel like a shimmering soap bubble in her mind, fragile and ringing like a fingertip over wet glass? Why does she remember—spikes...?)

Candy for dinner.

They'd had...candy...for dinner...

Roxanne remembers her back against the rough wood of the booth, in the noise and bright lights and merry singing, pressed close to Megamind's side in the corner booth. He had a smear of red cherry across his mouth and she'd used her own napkin to wipe it away and pretended not to notice how wide his eyes got. Roxanne had ordered something fizzy and alcoholic and the bubbles bursting in her brain made her brave where she never ever otherwise would have had the courage...

When she'd kissed him she'd thought the stars in the sky were like that, the fizzy bright bubbles, and when he'd turned to look at her Roxanne had been entirely unable—unwilling—to quell the impulse and had reached out, cupping his sharp cheekbone in one mittened hand and turning his face towards her and capturing his lips with hers and he'd tasted like candy and...

That _was_ what had happened, that was right; they were—they _are_ children, still, and had chocolate for dinner and—

The spoons had been made of peppermint, candy-cane spoons, and she kissed him, under the stars, tasting it on his lips, feeling like she held her beating heart trapped and fluttering like a bird at the base of her throat and—

( _make a wish—_ )

And you don't go around kissing your best friend and expect things to be okay.

* * *

Maybe they should have talked about it. Maybe if she hadn't been such a coward, after, and had said... _something_ , god, anything at all. But he's not spoken a word to her, in the months since, and Roxanne has been walking around in a bit of a daze, alternating between miserably furious and furiously miserable.

Nothing like losing the only real friend you've ever had in your life to make you realize how isolated you are; how alone inside yourself. It _hurts_ ; like a fish hook caught in her heart, line drawn tight with longing for someone who can't even stand to look at her.

It makes for a _amazingly_ awkward group assignment.

They'd started the Potions project as a favor to Wayne. The only extra credit Professor Snape was offering involved a long and complicated series of potions as a group effort. Neither she nor Megamind needed the extra, but Wayne could hardly brew a potion to save his life so they'd agreed to it for his sake.

Besides, if you have to spend time in class, it's always better to have your friends there.

Until you kiss one of them. Because you're _stupid_ , and hopeless and pathetic—

"Um, Roxie?" Wayne's voice, soft in the quiet classroom, catches her attention. She glances up at him, and he points down. "Your wand's smoking."

There is a soft noise from Megamind, on her other side, and it takes every bit of willpower Roxanne has to smooth her features into neutrality before looking over at him.

He's frowning in concentration, slowly pouring liquid from a flask into the cauldron and stirring with the other. "You didn't add the dandelion root," he murmurs.

Roxanne lets a breath out through her teeth and carefully adds the ingredient.

There is silence for another moment, then Megamind says, "Will you please pass me the rose oil?"

His _relentless_ politeness and quiet comments and passing her things with his fingertips and not looking at her and standing angled away from her is like gasoline slowly and gently poured onto a fire.

He is _infuriating_ , why couldn't he just _yell_ at her and get it over with—Roxanne you ruined _everything_ , why couldn't he just _say it_ —

"Um—" Wayne taps her carefully on the shoulder. "Roxie, your wand's smoking again—"

Megamind finally looks at her, eyes wide, before turning his gaze away again. Deep breath. Flattening his lips together. "We need to focus on the assignment."

" _Are_ you guys fighting?" Wayne asks, eyes flicking back and forth at them below raised brows.

"No!" they snap, at the exact same moment.

Wayne's brows climb higher towards his hairline and he keeps his gaze fixed on the table as he lowers his book. "Oh- _kay_ , he says, well, no worries then, huh? 'Cause _this_ never ends poorly for us."

This is it. This is the end of her patience, the dying breath of her willpower. Another moment more and she's going to scream or start crying or—

The cauldron explodes.

A plume of golden smoke billows out, sparks lighting on the table top. Roxanne yanks her book out of range, jumping backward. Across the room, Professor Snape sighs and begins walking towards them.

"What did you _do_?"

"Me? I didn't do anything! I was following what _you_ said, like we always—"

"Um—" They both turn to look at Wayne, who is holding a half-full vial of some kind of shiny liquid. "You, uh. I thought you said saltpeter? But maybe it was supposed to be salt water—"

Roxanne chokes on a snort of laughter, turning unthinking to look at Megamind, biting back a smile and Megamind is wearing the same expression, green eyes bright with mirth. Roxanne's heart lurches at the familiarity, longing welling up swiftly, tightening her throat—oh, maybe—could he maybe—

Megamind's face twists into a scowl, and he tears his gaze away from her.

She doesn't look at Megamind again, but quietly gathers her things and leaves while Wayne is still bearing out the lecture on following precise instructions _precisely_.

Anger—anger is. Easier. Don't cry, damn it, _don't cry_ , get _angry_. If you can't be angry at him, be angry at yourself again, it's better than _this_ ; better than sick misery churning in her gut.

"Roxanne! Hey, Roxanne—wait up!"

She glances over her shoulder. Hal is pelting down the hall towards her. Roxanne scowls, lengthening her strides but he catches up anyway, sweating and out of breath.

Sweaty face beaming at her, wiping the hair back from his brow. "Hey, wow—slow down, where's the fire?"

"What do you _want_ , Hal? I'm not having the best day, all right? I just want to—"

"Geez, _relax,_ will you? I just wanted to say that was _super_ cool back there. What you did with that potion."

Rolling her eyes. "It was as much Megamind as me Hal, you know that."

"Yeah but—that guy won't give me the time of day, you know? We're not exactly buddies." Glancing at her sidelong, pressing his lips together. "I, uh. I noticed you two haven't exactly seemed all that friendly lately, either and I—"

" _Not_ your business, Hal—"

"I know! Geez, I know. I'm not trying to get all up in your drama, okay? I just...like, he's not the only guy out there that thinks your really great. I just thought...I dunno, maybe you could use a friend or something."

She wants Megamind back, but. That's never going to happen. Hal isn't exactly her first choice—honestly, Hal isn't _anyone's_ first choice. Roxanne bites her lip, eyeing him sidelong.

"I know I'm not, like...a supergenuis or anything, but like.." He smiled at her, a real smile, sweet and a little shy and she thought he probably knew he was no one's first choice. "I thought I could at least, like. Carry your books for you or something. That's what friends do, right?"

Well. What could it hurt? "Sure, Hal. Here. Thanks."

He shuffled her stack on top of his own, holding them in the crook of one elbow and reaching into his robes with his other hand. "Sure, no problem. Listen, it's hot out. You thirsty?" He held out a bottle of water. "It's not magic or anything but I usually bring stuff like this from home. It's still pretty cold, too."

She almost has it in her hand when a bright light flashes from behind, and a blast of magic sends the bottle flying away.

Megamind, striding down the stars, face dark with fury. Roxanne feels her own anger rising in response. How _dare_ he butt in—

Hal looks shocked, sputtering and angry but Megamind sweeps between them, one arm out as if to shield Roxanne.

 _"Hey_ ," she says, "I don't know where you get off thinking you can—"

"It was _spelled_ ," he snaps, his voice low and cold. "That water. He'd stuck a love potion in it."

Her mouth falls open in shock. There is no need to ask for proof—Hal's murderous glare is proof enough.

"I've seen him working on it in his dorm," Megamind says softly, not taking his eyes away from Hal's face. "He told me it was a memory potion. As if I didn't know better."

"So what?" Hal says, sneering, gaze locked with Megamind's. "So what if it was? You think just because you don't want her anymore, no one else can have her? Doesn't she deserve the chance to be happy with someone else?"

A small crowd begins to gather, drawn by the tension, excited to watch a fight. Wayne casually moves along the edge of it to stand in Hal's blind spot.

"She deserves the freedom to make up her own mind about what she wants—"

"It was just for _fun_ , okay? It was just for _fun_ , 'cause she's been—" Hal tears his gaze away from Megamind and meets Roxanne's eyes. She takes a small, instinctive step sideways, putting more of Megamind between them. "Roxie, you've been so miserable lately, ever since Christmas, I just wanted to see you _smile_ again—"

Outrage flares, sharp and sudden, over the horror. "By _drugging_ me?"

"It's not _like_ that, why aren't you listening? It wasn't going to be—it was just for _fun_ , I didn't—"

"You can't even lie," Megamind sneers. "How are _you_ a Slytherin? You aren't cunning in the slightest. I bet you can't even _spell_ guile. Slime like you isn't worthy of any house, it's a pity 'trash heap' isn't an option for sorting—"

Hal's face had twisted more with every word, eyes dark and vicious, fixed on Megamind's face. He lunged, sudden and swift, swinging his fist—Megamind ducks smoothly aside, pulling Roxanne with him, and while Hal is off-balance from his swing Megamind's wand snaps up.

A swirl of light spirals around Hal, spinning him in a circle and then _down_ and when the light clears there is no Hal, only a small confused looking ferret.

There is a burst of laughter and cheering from the crowd of students. Megamind turns to her, and smiles, looking very pleased with himself. Roxanne realizes suddenly she's holding onto his arm and quickly lets go. "Sorry," she says. "Um—"

"What's going on? Stand aside—what's going on here?" Professor Mcgonagall shoves through the crowd and she stops short, staring suspiciously at them the three of them surrounding the ferret before sighing. " _Why_ is it always you three?" She sounded as though she were complaining to the universe at large.

Megamind drew a breath and stepped forward. "Professor, I can explain—"

At a shrill shriek from the ferret, her eyes widened. "Is that—is that a student?"

Megamind winced. "Um. Technically it's a ferret..."

* * *

Of course they get detention.

After depositing Hal in the Headmaster's office, she led them down to the library and into one of the back storerooms.

Wayne tried to apologize. "Sorry, Professor. We were just trying to—"

She stops in front of a table which held a mountain of books, clearly piled haphazardly with no thought to order. "Sorry?" she says, looking at each of them in turn, letting her gaze linger on Megamind. "For defending your friend from the unwanted advances of that—that—" She flattens her lips together and shakes her head. "You should have come to me, or your own head of House, when you knew what he was up to. That would have been the right thing to do. But you shouldn't be sorry for protecting Miss Ritchi, however wrongly you may have gone about it."

She smiled at their surprised expressions, then waved a hand at the table.

"Shelve these, please. All of them. By hand. I'll have your wands now." Reluctantly, they handed them over and she tucked them into a pocket inside her robes. "Come see me in the morning during breakfast hour and I'll give them back to you."

"A spell could do this," Wayne mutters, lifting a book and wincing at the cascade of dust that cascades down.

She stops on her way through the door, fixing him with a look over her shoulder. "Yes. That's rather the point, isn't it? This is _detention_ , Mister Scott, not a walk in the woods with unicorns."

They sort books in silence and stack them onto the cart in silence and then begin shelving, working all together in one aisle and Roxanne finally steels herself and turns to Megamind and bursts out with, Why _didn't_ you tell any of the professors.

He blinks at her, taken aback. "I knew he'd never manage to brew it. You know how awful he is in Potions. But then I saw him talking to that poufy-haired Ravenclaw—"

"— _Bernard_?"

"His head is like brown dandelion fluff and he wears glasses and always sort of looks like he's bitten into the rind of a lemon?"

"Bernard."

"I didn't think anything of it then, but when you left—today, um, when you—left after Potions class... The way he watched you go, all shifty eyed and smiley—everything just sort of came together in my mind, and—well—

"And you came to save me," she says, softly, swallowing hard.

His face flushes with color. "Yes. Of course I did."

Silence descends once more and then Wayne heaves a massive, groaning sigh. "You two. Geez Louise. I'm just going to take _these_ —" he says, piling a stack of books onto his arm, "and go shelve over _there_. For _no reason at all_." He vanishes around the corner of the shelf, heading for another aisle.

Roxanne's head thumps forward onto the weathered spines and the edge of the shelf. She feels more than a little bit like she's going to be sick, all hot under her skin and hard to breathe and— _tell him, just tell him, you coward just say it. You can't make things any worse at this point._

"I'm sorry for kissing you," she says, and the words _feel_ a bit like vomit, burning her throat and stinging her eyes. There is silence, and she turns her head to stare him full in the face for what will probably be the last time.

Megamind is wide eyed, mouth agape, staring back at her in shock. " _You're_ sorry you—Roxanne, I— _I_ kissed _you_ —"

She blinks, standing straight, heart fluttering wildly against her ribs. "What? _What_? Megamind, no—I kissed your cheek, I put my _hand_ on your _face_ and—"

"You kissed my cheek like—like a _friend_ , that was friendly affection and—" His cheeks are flushed deep purple. "That...that wasn't...friendly?" His voice wobbles on the word.

They stare at each other for one tense moment.

Roxanne takes a step forward, heart slamming against her ribs, and touches his face, palm cupping his cheek. Megamind _smiles_ , and her heart lifts and she kisses him, softly at first but with increasing intent—she's wanted this for _so long_ —ever since the beginning, ever since—

( _Good girls don't run_ towards _danger, Miss Ritchi—_ )

There is a noise swelling in the air, a sort of monotone ringing, pitched achingly high, vibrating through her skull and setting her teeth on edge, resonating like a glass chime.

Megamind breaks the kiss, wincing and holding one hand to his head. "What _is_ that?"


	2. Ripples

Storms in the wild don't come with nifty labels for wind speed and expected rainfall, and the only reporter on this beach has never covered weather.

"It's a tropical storm at least," Megamind says grimly. He's sitting beside her, elbows propped up on his knees, long fingers splayed across his cheeks. He catches her eye then nods at the dark mass of clouds on the horizon. "That's about three hundred miles of storm, end to end there."

Roxanne lets out a shuddery breath, then shuts her eyes.

"We'll use the rope," he says quietly. "Huddle in the center of the island and tie ourselves in and. Well."

"Try not to die," she says without opening eyes.

Megamind exhales a breath of air. "I was going to say, hope for the best. I suppose it amounts to the same thing though."

"Tonight?"

"Yes."

"In the dark."

"Yes."

"Megamind," Roxanne says, and finally opens her eyes. He is staring at her, openly and quietly, there in the cool shadows under the palms with the cool winds preluding the storm whispering through the fronds.

Roxanne can't seem to find her breath. She has never been afraid this way, before; even when the plane went down she hadn't been this scared.

This is dread, and a cold certain fear of something she can't change or fight or run from. Only brace herself, and—and fucking _hope_.

She reaches out and closes her hand around his wrist, tugging gently until he gives it to her. She slips her fingers between his, gripping tightly.

"I don't want to die," she says.

He tightens his fingers, very gently. "Yeah," he says quietly. "Me neither."

* * *

It's not right, not at all, not even a little bit. You can't possibly fall this in love with someone this quickly. They've only been on this god forsaken island a couple of weeks and he'd never even seen her, before boarding that plane.

To think he'd come that close to never knowing that there was this whole other person out there walking around with his heart in their hands.

She doesn't know.

He's _fairly certain_ she doesn't know, at least. As certain as he ever is of other people.

Roxanne flirts _shamelessly_ , but she's not the first person who's ever teased him and she is absolutely the type to say things just to see if she can get him to blush. He's been thinking of her as the Temptress, though he is _extremely_ careful never to let the word slip out. Then she _would_ know, there's no coming back from something as obvious as that and...there isn't exactly anywhere he'd be able to go, to get away from the ensuing awkwardness. This island is microscopic, and they have yet to see another plane or a boat.

Megamind has never gotten along with _anyone_ so well.

Their circumstances should have made them all irritable with each other, anxious and hungry and exhausted as they all were. Roxanne has a temper, certainly but he can _see_ the efforts she makes at leashing it and so he only loves her all the more for it.

He is very dismayed, at himself. He's not _supposed_ to be hopelessly romantic. He's supposed to be logical and clear-headed.

Especially now. Megamind is very aware that the survival of all three of them rests on his shoulders. Or rather, on his store of knowledge. He'd never thought to use his eidetic memory for this kind of situation but if—when—they ever get back to civilization he's going to read every survival how-to guide he can get his hands on.

He hadn't passed out, when the plane went down.

He is evolutionarily designed to go longer periods with no oxygen, and while he'd never had reason to equate rapid changes in altitude as a strength of his alien physiology, perhaps it was similar enough to rising from a deep dive that he was more impervious to the effects on his blood and breathing.

 _That_ had been...an interesting experience.

Lots of screaming. A good deal of it his own. Lots of bodies tossed around by gravity and turbulence, luggage tumbling out of the overhead compartments. The breathing masks had fallen down but were utterly useless under the circumstances.

The plane had fallen almost directly nose-down. At some point, whether due to an explosion or a lightning strike or the sheering effects of gravity—perhaps all three—a hole had torn open in the side, near the captain's cabin.

Then they'd hit the water. It had been a bit like being _inside_ a thunderclap.

Megamind thinks he hit his head at that point, because his memory is a bit fuzzy. Understandable, under the circumstances. Ocean water was rushing in through the hole, flooding the compartment and he'd had to wade then swim against the current but he'd made it out, as the plane filled and dark waves closed over it.

He'd taken in one deep breath, and dived down after it.

Megamind often, in the weeks since, has had nightmares about this part. Because she'd been _just there_ , just within his reach, at the edge of the torn hole in the cabin. She had almost made out herself.

In his nightmares, he watches her sink into the dark.

He'd barely been able to reach her, but he had. Grasped her wrist and hauled her with him to the surface. He remembers thinking, very clear and calm, _Okay. Now what_?

A darker shape against the blackness caught his eye. An island. It wasn't even that far away, really.

Megamind adjusted his grasp on the woman, switching her into a lifeguard's hold, and swam for it.

It seemed that the teeth of the storm, the high winds and lightning were in the upper atmosphere. The ocean rolled and swelled on the surface but wasn't crashing or angry. The rain was awful, heavy and relentless downpour that made visibility difficult, even for him.

But he made it, staggering up onto the beach with her in his arms. Megamind made sure she was breathing, checked her over for injuries—her left wrist was horribly bruised and swollen but he couldn't feel anything broken. Then left her in the trees, well above the high-tide line.

And went back out.

He found the big guy floating on a broken-off of the plane, tangled in what seemed like miles of rope. Megamind used it to lash the man to the debris. He'd been hoping to find more floating wreckage, things they could use for survival, but there was nothing but black water under a black sky.

The swim was much more difficult this time. Every muscle burning and cramping, nose and throat stinging with salt water where he'd taken a breath at the wrong moment.

Megamind reached the shore just as the sun came up, at last, rising in glorious colorful splendor that he watched from his position face-down on the beach, rough sand against the side of his face and his feet still mostly in the water.

The woman had woken up while he was out, and was helping the big guy stand and stagger over to the tree line.

Megamind watched the sunrise and clear the storm clouds and felt the tide and waves still tugging at his body. Beyond the soft sounds of conversation near the trees and the whisper of the ocean, the world was utterly silent.

 _Well_ , he thought tiredly. _Fuck_. He shut his eyes for a brief moment. His body thought it was still in the water. He could feel it pulling at his bones.

Water. The first order of business was fresh water.

As soon as he could stand he'd talk to the others. They needed to explore the island. Find out what resources they might have. He tried to determine the size of it, in his mind, from the storm-blurred glimpses he'd had the night before and his brain balked at the task of estimation. Certainly no more than three miles or so. Not a large island.

Perhaps it was a good thing he hadn't found other survivors. Resources would likely be slim.

Scuffing footsteps, nearing his head, then a shadow fell over him. The woman, crouching down, staring at him with concern. Her left wrist cradled carefully against her chest. She'd rigged a sling out of—

Megamind sits up so fast the resulting head rush left his heart pounding and vision blurring at the edges.

"Hey—you alright? Want some help getting to the shade?"

"Mm. Fine," he manages, with his eyes fixed on the horizon. Sunrise. Lovely, lovely sunrise.

She sits next to him. "I'm Roxanne. The other guy is Wayne."

"Megamind," he says, without looking around at her.

"I know." He glances at her despite himself, surprised, and she smiles at him. "Only blue alien in the world," she says. "You're kind of hard to miss."

"Ah. Oh, yes. Well. That makes sense."

Her brow furrows in concern. "You okay? You look a little flushed. We should probably get you into the shade."

Megamind takes a slow, careful breath. Every bit of his body is either sore, aching burn or nervy buzzing static but the sticking point seems to be— He'd be a lot _more_ alright if she...was wearing more than a blue lacy bra.

This is tiredness, this is _definitely_ just after-effects of—of a god damn plane crash and a night spent battling the ocean. He's never been _this_ squirmy about—about...boobs. It's just, ah. Shock. Probably. That would explain his racing heart, the shortness of breath—

"Thank you, by the way," she says, and his eyes seek hers again. She gives him another smile, this one softer. "For saving us. Wayne says he doesn't know how to swim. I don't remember anything after the plane started going down, I think I passed out. We'd have died, without you."

"Oh. It was, ah." Megamind clears his throat, trying to steady his voice. "It was. Nothing."

Roxanne tilts her head to one side, arching a brow. "I'd hardly call finding this tiny sand pit in a storm _nothing_. Let alone hauling one complete stranger to shore, and then going back out into the water to save another one. I think you've pretty well earned a rest. Come on, lemme help you up. Wayne and I are going to split off and circle the island, see if we can find anything useful. You should really sit down and get your breath back. Talk about a long night, right?"

She tugs him gently to his feet while she speaks, and keeps her arm around his back once he's up, walking him toward the palm trees. The big guy grins and throws out his arms.

"Hey, there's our hero!"

Megamind frowns. "I just did what anyone would doo—ahhhh!" The big guy—Wayne—lifts him off his feet in a crushing hug, then sets him back down and pats him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, little buddy, but it wasn't anyone, was it? And here we are. That counts. I'm heading this way, Roxie, I'll meet you halfway down the beach on the other side then we'll come back up the middle together," Wayne says, walking backward down the beach as he speaks.

She waves. "Sounds good!"

"Roxie?" Megamind asks.

Her face twists. "Yeah, I made the mistake of telling him how much I hate that nickname."

Megamind shuts his eyes a moment, swaying on his feet. He feels like maybe he left his brains back in the ocean.

"Here—um. Let me. Fix your sling. That must've been hard to do, one-handed."

Roxanne glances down at herself, exposed skin and lacy bra, then looks back at Megamind with an amused smile. Was _that_ why he was all stumbly and flushed? She'd been worrying he'd had a stroke, or hit his head.

He uses his own shirt to do it, so she can wear hers again.

"We'll be okay," Megamind says as he works. Long blue fingers moving gently along her wrist, pressing here and there looking for breaks. It hurts but it's tolerable. "The airline will send out rescue crews. We're pretty close to where it went down."

"We just have to hang on until then?"

"Yes. A few weeks at most? I'm not, um. A survival expert or anything but I know how to make tools, and fire, from pretty much nothing. We'll be able to fish. These are coconut palms. It's just fresh water that's going to be tricky. Look for streams leading from the trees."

* * *

Roxanne doesn't find anything on her walk down the beach, no streams leading from the trees and no other islands along the horizon. Halfway down the back stretch she comes across Wayne leaning casually against the trunk of a tall palm. Flapping in the wind, twisted around the high fronds, is a tarp.

"Heya! Look what I found." He grins, jabbing a thumb upward.

"Nice!"

They stare at each other a moment.

"What are you waiting for?" she asks. "Climb up and get it."

" _Me_? The blue guy—"

"Megamind. His name's Megamind. And he spent all night swimming in a stormy ocean to save us. _You_ go up and get it."

Wayne takes a step back, eyeing the palm dubiously. "It's not that you don't have a point, Roxie, I just don't think that thing is gonna bear my weight. I mean." He holds out one of his legs, balancing easily on his other foot. "Look at that, one of my thighs is bigger around than the whole trunk."

"If you're too much for it, it'll bend over." Wayne shoots her a look, which she returns with a bright smile and a stare of wide-eyed innocence. "Then I'll be able to grab it."

"Uh _huh_. Wow. Okay. Well, here we go."

It is pretty clear from his scrambling and cursing that he's never climbed a tree in his life. The trunk does bow beneath him, the whippy end of the tree shaking violently every time he inches closer.

He falls off, at the end, but does manage to snag the tarp. And the sound he makes when the tree slipped out of his grasp and he plummeted to the ground was quite satisfying.

 _This_ , she thinks at herself. _It's things like this that make you not a good person_. Roxanne grins, anyway, as he comes crashing through the underbrush with the tarp bundled in his arms. He's got shallow scrapes along his arms and has leaves in his hair and when he catches sight of her just standing there and laughing at him he sigh, shaking his head.

"You're evil," he says, "you know that?"

"I've always thought it's one of my best qualities."

* * *

Megamind makes something he calls a solar still out of the tarp, directly Wayne at digging a pit in the sand and explaining to Roxanne how it will collect water.

In the ensuing days, they drag the piece of airplane a little ways inland and rig up a shelter. Megamind teaches Roxanne how to weave nets and rope from some of the plants on the island. He fashions an axe, of sorts, for Wayne out of metal from the piece of debris he'd pulled Wayne ashore on and sets Wayne to work felling saplings and gathering wood.

Megamind builds a raft out of it the random mismatched sticks so he can go out fishing along the reef. Wayne, with great pains to hide his efforts until it's complete, etches a great big smiley sun onto the side of the shelter, over the words _CAMP SUNSHINE._ They spread palm fronds on every beach, spelling _**HELP**_.

Roxanne's wrist heals, and she returns Megamind's shirt.

It smells, quite wonderfully, of sweaty Roxanne.

She mentions one day, offhand and casual, that the silence is so loud she can't think. And before Megamind quiet knows what's happened, he's crafted about half a dozen wind chimes for her, out of seashells and driftwood.

 _This is ridiculous_ , he thinks, staring in bemusement at the cluster of shells and polished wood. _Utterly ridiculous. You don't love her you can't possibly—it's just...infatuation. A_ crush _. She's gorgeous, and you're stuck on an island with her in the actual middle of nowhere_.

But when Megamind thinks about the way she's going to smile, when he gives them to her, the way she'll light up and throw her arms around his neck and—

And he _knows_ she will, he knows it—he knows _her_ , and he shouldn't—he feels like every new thing he discovers about her is something he already knows and has only forgotten. The way she swipes her hair out of her eyes, the sound of her yelp when he'd dropped a handful of live shrimp into her palms—she was never again going to fall for _close your eyes and hold out your hands_ —and it had been _so_ very worth it, she'd chased him halfway down the island but she'd been laughing so hard she could hardly run in a straight line.

Or the expression on her face when he'd catch her watching him, sometimes; something like _hunger_ , like longing, like—

(It's _not_ love, it's _not,_ it's _not_ )

Wayne watches him build the chimes with an amused smile and when Megamind glares at him he only grins. "Hey, man. Good on you. Don't worry about me, she's not my type. Too spiky." He makes a show of looking Megamind up and down with an appraising glance and Megamind can only stare back in flustered astonishment, but then Wayne grins again and says, "So are you, for that matter. You two urchins have fun, 'kay?"

Megamind's cheeks flush hotly. "I'm only—she just wanted some sound—"

Wayne snorts. "Yeah. You keep telling yourself that, buddy."

She _does_ hug him, smiling delightedly and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. Megamind tries quite hard not to walk around in a daze after that. Roxanne hangs the chimes in the trees around the shelter.

A few days later she surprises him with a gift of her own, a hat she's woven for him to wear when fishing. "So you don't sunburn as bad," she says, shyly.

It's just a dumb hat but Megamind feels like she's just given him the world.

The wind picks up, that night, setting the chimes singing in the dark. When they wake in the morning Megamind finds that Roxanne has cuddled up around him, one arm tucked over his chest.

A warm feeling spreads through him something like awe, like wonder—

(like _love_ )

Spoons. This is what they call spoons, isn't it?

He can feel her breathing. She's so close, he can feel her body move against his with every breath he takes. He's never been this close to anyone. He moves his hand, slowly, and entwines their fingers. He has a grin on his face and the warm feeling is spreading higher, almost like the slow burn of alcohol.

Wayne's voice intrudes on the moment, scattering the joy at once with the cold dread in his tone.

"Oh, shit."

And Megamind, at last snapping out of the contented daze, feels his blood run cold because—

Overcast, the cool wind, the _smell_ on the wind—

He bolts to his feet, and hears Roxanne protest behind him but—

He runs around the edge of the shelter, standing beside Wayne, staring out through the skinny trees at the ocean.

On the horizon, so huge it seems to cover the entire eastern sky, is a mountain of dark clouds.

* * *

Megamind seems confident they're only going to catch the trailing edge of it.

As if that isn't _enough_ , out here.

"Hardly enough to even be exciting, if we were in a house."

A thread of sound escaped her, something between a laugh and a whimper. "I think I've just about had my fill of exciting for one lifetime, thanks."

"The winds and the flooding are going to be the worst," he says. "We don't have much high ground here. And I." He swallowed. Shut his eyes, let out a slow breath. "I don't know," he says at last. "I don't know what's going to be best. I think tying ourselves together and to the trees, against the wind. But I don't know what debris will be flying around. We could climb into the trees to get above the water but that won't work with the wind. We'll just... Have to find high ground, and. Give ourselves leeway in the ropes, so when it floods we can try to stay together above the storm surge..."

Roxanne reached out and touched his arm and he looked at her. "We're kind of putting all our survival on your shoulders. Megamind..." Roxanne waits until he looks at her before continuing. "It's not your fault. If things go wrong. I hope you know that."

Megamind looks down at her hand on his arm, something flashing over his expression so fast she can't really catch it, only gets an impression of it.

Something very tender, something almost like longing, almost like—like _impossibility_. She shouldn't be thinking these things...not at all, especially not _now_ —

Or. Or, maybe.

Now is exactly when she should be thinking these things.

They secure their supplies as best as they can, and haul the shelter to the far side of the island, heaving as much heavy material as they can onto it, before using some of the rope to die it down. Megamind is worried it might become a blade, in the powerful winds.

While there is still sufficient light in the sky, they stake out what seems like the best high ground, where Megamind thinks they'll have the most shelter from the wind. There is a cluster of palms there, near a rise of ground. It's all they've got.

Roxanne oversees the knots.

"I. Um." Her cheeks go pink and she tosses her hair out of her face. "I maybe like tying people up," she says, unable to meet their eyes. "Just not usually for... Survival reasons."

"Oh," Megamind says, eyes going very wide.

Wayne snorts. "We're going to put our lives on the line with skills you got by tying up sex partners?"

"Funny what skills come in handy," Roxanne says lightly, testing her work on his ropes before moving to Megamind. Unable to resist the urge, she glances up at him and grins, feeling wicked. "Too bad my handcuffs went down with the plane."

He flushes a lovely deep purple under his sunburn, all the way from his neck to the tips of his ears. Roxanne ties herself in, to the tree next to his. It's getting very dark, now, and the cool storm winds have picked up, as has the rain. She settles in against her tree.

And then reaches out, in the dark, to hold tightly to Megamind's hand.

* * *

It is easily the worst night of her life. Worse even than the plane crash. That had been more frightening in a sheer-terror sense but she's found that she much prefers sheer-terror over the gnawing certainty of slow dread. Everything dark, with the howling wind and crash of the ocean all around them. No way to tell how much time was passing. Freezing cold and soaked to the bone and unable, in the face of all that physical misery, to distract herself at all.

Megamind had held her hand the entire night, sometimes tapping his fingers along her knuckles, sometimes gently rubbing his thumb back and forth across hers and if she hadn't had that point of contact, that one anchor in the long dark of the storm, she thought she may have gone mad.

Wayne hadn't gone mad, alone, but he hadn't exactly come out unscathed.

She finishes hanging up her shirt across the low branch of a palm, and wades through the now only ankle-deep water to the only dry spot on the island, where she and Megamind had woven a shelter of palm branches to shield Wayne from the sun.

His eyes crack open as she approaches. His right leg, stretched out in front of him, had broken in two places when his tree had fallen on him in the storm.

"How's your leg?"

"It hurts like a bit—ahhhh." He glances up and bites his tongue on the word, swallowing and saying a bit roughly, "Like a really painful thing."

Roxanne holds out the coconut she'd smashed open for him. "You can curse all you want. It doesn't bother me."

"Gee, thanks mom." He wrinkled his nose at the coconut but took it all the same, carefully swallowing every bit of juice.

"So you're going with him."

"Yeah. If the raft's intact." Megamind had gone to find out as soon as they'd taken care of Wayne. "You'll be sole inhabitant of Camp Sunshine for the day. I'll leave you plenty of coconuts."

Wayne had not been the only casualty of the night. The tarp, the wall of the shelter, and all their other supplies had been entirely swept away. No tarp meant no solar still meant no drinking water.

Megamind would have to reach the plane wreckage for supplies, or they would all die.

* * *

"All right," Megamind says at last, and tucks his paddle into the boat.

Roxanne looks down over the side. The water is blue, with light slanting in beams below the surface and a few specks of shrimp-looking things kicking around, and then solid deep darkness. "Here? You're sure."

Megamind glances over his shoulder at the island, then nods.

Roxanne follows his gaze to the distant smudge, then looks back at him with wide eyes.

"You came all this way. In the dark, in a storm— _twice_. After a _plane crash_. Carrying other people."

Megamind arches one brow. "What? It's not that far."

"Megs. It's pretty fucking far."

He grins at her. "Alien superiority?"

Roxanne smiles back, and then Megamind stands. "Wish me luck!"

"Luck," she says softly, her heart fluttering a little.

He vanishes over the side with hardly a ripple. She watches him swim down, rope trailing behind, until he fades into the dark.

He is gone a long time. Roxanne spends most of it staring down at the place where the bright nylon of the rope vanishes, but as the sun begins to set and the shadows lengthen her eyes try to turn everything into monsters and so with a deep breath she tears her gaze away and watches the sunset instead.

The wind has died down and the surface is calm and the sunset is so beautiful it seems more like something that belongs on a painting. Real life isn't supposed to have colors like this.

For a moment, floating gently with the raft on soft ocean swells, in the stillness and quiet of the world, she feels a deep sense of calm rising from within. They've come through so much.

Whatever happens...it will be okay. They'll make it.

And then she looks down and sees a vast, dark shape hurtling upwards out of the depths—

Roxanne doesn't have time to scream. It crashes out of the water almost directly under the boat. What seems like miles of black, slick skin and frothy seawater. The wave from its breach swamps the raft and she slides off, swallowing seawater and flailing blindly for the raft, clenching her nails into the rough sides of it.

She emerges coughing and sputtering, terrified, legs churning beneath her, waiting for the teeth to rake across her flesh—

She should have screamed, when he came up behind her, when he put his arm around her—she hadn't heard him, she'd been _braced_ for an attack—but she knew. Somehow, she knew, and only felt a deep sense of relief.

The spray from its crash back into the ocean nearly sends them underwater again but Megamind's skinny arms are like steel cables, holding her and the raft as a pod of crashing, whooshing whales explode the ocean all around them.

He murmurs into her ear, "Humpback whales, they're not predatory, they eat krill—little shrimp things—"

"What happens if one comes down on top of us?"

Megamind smiles at her, a flash of a grin under quirked brows. There are drops of water beaded all over his skin. "At least it'll be quick?"

She snorts in disbelief, and they both laugh. It should feel like insanity, or hysteria—everything that's happened, and here they are in danger of being pancaked by _whales_ —but—

But the whales are already beginning to subside and drift away, the water slowly calming in their wake and Megamind's arm is so very warm, wrapped firmly around her waist, and their legs keep tangling together underwater and it isn't quite the feeling of serenity she'd grasped, before the first whale came up, but some kind of fierce, primal _joy_ because—despite it all. They were here, and alive and—

"Make a wish," he says softly. "Make _all_ your wishes."

"What?"

Roxanne feels the sound of his laughter vibrate through him. A shiver races down her spine. It has nothing to do with the evening chill of the water.

His breath is warm, at her ear. "Look at the sky, Roxanne."

The stars are already out, in the deepening blue above them, and across the cloudless sky she watches as streaks of light shoot towards the horizon.

 _Make all your wishes_.

She turns, in his arms, letting go of the raft and holding onto his shoulders, feeling her skin sliding against his. Megamind tilts his head to meet her hungry kiss. He tastes like salt water, at first, until she kisses it all off of his lips and then licks into his mouth. He moans, deep in his throat, and Roxanne breaks the kiss briefly to wrap her legs around his, pulling herself against him full-length. His eyes go wide as she presses into him.

"Roxanne—"

"Yes," she says. Whatever it is, the answer is _yes_.

Cold ocean water all around and Megamind so _warm_ , everywhere they're touching, his lips so very close to hers. She is wondering very seriously about the structural integrity of the little raft when a soft sound she's been unconsciously blocking out suddenly swells in intensity.

A monotone chiming, and she thinks whatever it is she's hearing it with more than her ears because it feels like her bones are _humming_. Megamind winces in pain.

Roxanne has time to say, "That's...is that the _whales_...?" before—

before—

Before everything _twists._


	3. Repair

"Don't shoot, _don't shoot_ —"

The blue guy in the black-leather, steel-spiked motorcycle jacket has his hands up, but Roxanne already pulled the trigger, body acting on keenly honed survival instinct.

Roxanne shoots, but manages to lift the barrel of her shotgun towards the ceiling and blows a hole in the plaster instead of his body. The guy throws himself down behind the counter as the blast echoes in the room.

Dust and bits of plaster drifting slowly down from the ceiling, white gray over his blue skin as he lifts himself up and peers at her from behind the safety of the counter, green eyes wide in the gloom. "You shot me," he says, sounding surprised and somewhat betrayed.

"Killer instincts," Wayne says, nudging her with his shoulder.

"I'm sorry!" she says, cringing, and holding her gun out to one side. "I'm so sorry! Are you all right?"

He straightens slowly, without taking his eyes away from her, and reaches up to brush the dust off of his head. "I think I just had three heart attacks. But apart from that, yes."

Roxanne is suddenly, abruptly, _painfully_ aware of just how long it's been since she's met another living person. She sticks out one hand. He stares down at it without moving.

"I'm Roxanne, by the way," she says. He slowly lifts his eyes to her face, then slowly turns his head to look at Wayne, then slowly looks back down at her hand, still extended into the space between them. He reaches out and tentatively grasps her fingers, lifting her hand up and down with his as if he, too, has forgotten how to greet people.

"Megamind," he says. "I mean. My name is Megamind."

He's an alien, of course. There are some few dozen of various species of aliens on Earth, and Roxanne feels a little stupid for not realizing before that they were all likely immune to the virus which had turned humanity into shuffling undead monsters.

"That's quite the instinct," he says, still watching her and being careful to keep both of his hands in full view. Wayne walks away from them, towards a soda machine against the far wall.

An embarrassed laugh escapes her. "Yeah, ah. Sorry. I'm really sorry. I guess we've just...been out here a long time, you know? The world isn't exactly a friendly place anymore."

Megamind arches one brow and says, "Was it ever?" His gaze shifts to Wayne, who is trying to lever the front panel off of the soda machine. "Your boyfriend is going to break that machine."

"Probably," Roxanne says, "but if he gets the soda out, who cares? He's not my boyfriend, though. Wayne's my cousin. There's a couple other guys in our group." It is utterly stupid that she wants to add, _Neither of which I'm dating?_ "Are you by yourself?"

"Yes."

She sets her gun down on the counter and unshoulders her backpack, then hops up and sits beside it. Megamind stares down at the gun in front of him, nonplussed.

"You...excuse me. But you _just_ met me. What if I'm a crazed murdering lunatic?"

Roxanne tilts her head, smiling at him, feeling something strange spreading through her, something warm and happy. "Are you?" she asks.

He looks affronted by her smiling cheerfulness. "No. But you have no way of knowing that."

"Maybe it's just been a while since I've seen anyone alive out here and I want to trust you."

"That's dumb. You shouldn't trust people the moment you meet them. What happened to that killer instinct?"

Roxanne nudges the shotgun. "Would you feel better if I tried to shoot you again?"

Megamind stares at her a long moment, as if he can't quite tell if she's serious, then he sighs and heaves his pack onto the counter beside hers, and lifts himself gracefully up to sit with her.

"Fine. You win."

They watch Wayne wrestling the machine for a moment, then Roxanne turns to him and asks, "So what's a nice alien like you doing in a dump like this?"

He gives her another one of those incredulous narrow-eyed looks, furrowing his brow and then finally exhaling a breath in what might have been a laugh. "Surviving, I suppose. "

Roxanne swings her legs back and forth for a bit, then nudges her shoulder against his. This time he almost smiles at her. She tips her head towards Wayne. "Want to come survive with us?"

Megamind looks at her for a long moment, glances over at Wayne, who has at last managed to wrench the door free of the machine and is now filling his pack with cans, then looks back at Roxanne. He takes a breath to answer then stops and sighs, shakes his head, and gives her a smile at last.

"All right. Sure. Why not?"

She leaves him to gather his things and approaches Wayne. He straightens, hefting his pack. "Lemme guess. You want him to come with us."

"Wayne, we haven't seen anyone else alive out here, this whole time. _Of course_ I want him to come with us."

He looks at her, then glances back at Megamind. "...Hal's not going to like it."

Roxanne wrinkles her nose in disgust. "Since when do I give a shit what _Hal_ likes?" She slings her shotgun back around her shoulder, adjusting it with her pack until it settles.

Wayne gives her a side-eyed look and she sighs.

" _What_."

"Tell me it's not just 'cause of the leather jacket and the spikes."

Roxanne feels heat spreading across her cheeks. "Um," she says.

Wayne covers his face with both hands and groans. "Oh god."

* * *

It _wasn't_ just the leather and the spikes.

Although...those were _very nice_. And she really liked the wide curve of his head and how very _expressive_ his face was and those big green eyes were utterly _stunning_ and her palms were itching to touch all that blue skin and...

...Okay. Okay, so she was in lust-at-first sight. _So what_?

He was gorgeous and the world was an utter shithole these days and if looking at him made her heart sort of flutter—so what. They were all going to die anyway. Might as well enjoy the good things in life while she still could.

It's true they haven't found anyone else living.

There's dead everywhere, though.

They'd pretty well decided that they were the only survivors, the four of them. They'd left the city behind nearly a year ago, moving steadily south to try and find somewhere with easier winters, and because... Well. Cities were pretty much nothing but shambling corpses and random fires and garbage, with intermittent explosions as facilities and processing plants ran down, without people there to maintain them.

Roxanne thinks that going south was a good idea, all in all. Spending the winter in Michigan without any heat, and with the streets crammed full of shambling corpses sounded like a circle of Hell.

But travelling with Hal was _also_ a circle of Hell. For her, at least.

She fantasies daily _—_ sometimes _hourly_ —about ditching the three men and setting off on her own. It's not like she can't take care of herself—she _is_ deadly with her shotgun, and she knows how to move quietly and avoid attracting the attention of the masses of dead—but she isn't ready to leave Wayne. Family is supposed to stick together, right?

And there isn't anyone else. Not alive, anyway.

But Wayne wouldn't leave his boyfriend Bernard—which, fair enough, but—

But _Hal_.

Hal is like a living tumor attached to the group, stinking and oozing and simply impossible to get rid of. He was Bernard's cousin, _and_ Roxanne's former camera man.

He was disgustingly persistent in pursuing her, no matter how many times she told him _NO_. He seemed to think it was only a matter of time before she gave in. Last living people on Earth and everything, being what it was.

Of course, he dislikes Megamind on sight.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell?"

Laughing as he walks up, rifle in the crook of one shoulder. He eyes Megamind up and down, and Roxanne feels an inexplicable and immediate urge to step between them, as though Hal's gaze is poison in itself, something she should be protecting Megamind from.

Fuck it. Everyone should be protected from Hal. He's more of a plague than the zombies.

She grabs Megamind's sleeve and steps close to him, smiling with all the fake cheerfulness she can muster at Hal as she does so. "Megamind, this is Hal—he's Bernard's cousin. Bernard is—" Roxanne tugs Megamind with her, hooking her arm around his and leading him away from Hal towards Bernard who standing in the circle of Wayne's arms.

"Hey, you two!" she says brightly, and they turn and give her a look, clearly baffled as to why she's interrupting their private moment. "Megamind, this is Bernard. He's Wayne's boyfriend."

"Um. Yes. Hello."

"Megamind's going to be coming along with us," she says, and feels him take a deep breath.

"Wait. _What_?"

Wayne catches Roxanne's eye and gives her and _I-told-you-so_ kind of look as Hal circles around them to stare at her.

"We don't _need_ anyone else. I mean—" he looks at Megamind. "Man, no offense—"

Megamind sighs softly.

"—but are you like. Even _human_? Roxanne, you should really _not_ be standing so close to that guy. He might not be dead but he's _clearly_ got something wrong with him—"

"I'm an alien," Megamind says. He tries to pull back from Roxanne but she won't release his arm.

"He doesn't have to explain himself to you, Hal—"

Wayne steps in quickly, holding out a hand towards each of them. "All right, all right, slow down you two. Hal, she's right. The guy's coming with us, okay? We can use all the help we can get out here."

"What? This is _bogus_ , we're supposed to make decisions as a _group_ —"

Wayne lowers his arms to his sides and takes a step forward, towering over Hal and staring down at him.

"All right," Wayne says softly. " _I_ think he should stay. Roxanne thinks he should stay. Bernard, what about you?"

Bernard glances at Megamind and shrugs. "If you think he's useful, I'm with you."

"There," Wayne says in the same gentle tone. "The group decided. Happy now?"

Hal looks like he wants to explode, but he just slings his rifle across his back and storms off down the road.

Wayne turns to look at Roxanne. There's a warning in his eyes, but it's nothing she hasn't always known.

"Come on," she says softly to Megamind, letting him have his arm back. His green eyes are wide and he looks like he wants to run in the other direction. "Please?" she adds, thinking if he says no, if he doesn't want—if he doesn't—

(I need you, I need _you_ , please don't leave, _please_ want to stay—)

He looks into her eyes a moment then takes a breath and squares his shoulders, shifting his pack, and gives a nod. "All right," he says. He gives her a brief smile, a real one, eyes soft over the curve of his lips and it's like a sunrise blooming in her chest, wild and hot and sudden.

"Lead the way," Megamind says casually, as if he hasn't just turned her world upside down.

* * *

Megamind fits very well, into their group, despite Hal's continued attitude. He has a great many tricks and techniques for survival that soon make life enormously easier for all of them, and any situation they come across which seems insurmountable to them is quickly overcome with intellect.

The trick with the fireworks is particularly useful. He's gathered all kinds of them and modified them to go off at timed intervals. He uses it to clear an area of zombies, before he goes into explore. Setting it off draws the dead towards the sounds and flashing lights, away from wherever the group wants to go.

Roxanne thinks, privately, that if they found someplace good, someplace quiet and safe, that with Megamind's genius they could get power and electricity running again. But. She can't imagine ever feeling safe enough to settle down, with Hal in the mix, and she's not sure Megamind would even want to stay put with all of them anyway.

He is very quiet, for the most part, but Roxanne keeps at him—not even sure _why_ she can't—won't, not can't—definitely not _can't_ —not sure why she won't leave him alone and he seems a little exasperated with her, though she gets the sense it's not because she's bugging him but rather that he just doesn't understand why she likes him so much.

 _She_ doesn't understand why she likes him so much, either. Why his most minute and subtle expressions seem to convey so much to her, why she feels so _drawn_ to him, so hungry for his presence. Just sitting beside him at the fire, listening to the others talk, she can't seem to keep a smile off her face.

He's funny, when he forgets to be nervous, and the more time she spends with him the more he begins to relax around her. She is both impressed with his quiet strength and also fiercely protective of him because...

There's something vulnerable, about him; something about his openness and sensitivity. As if he has only the one layer of armor, and it's almost all worn down, and he's nothing but tiredness and wounds and softness on the inside. And the fact that he lets her see this, that he feels safe enough with her to let down his walls, leaves her with a feeling she isn't quite ready to name.

She finds a pair of leather gloves, black with shiny steel spikes and buckles, in a shop in the mall they are looting. Checking swiftly to make sure no one's watching, she tucks them deep into her pack.

Roxanne waits until they are alone, when the other three have gone off to the bar around the corner from where they've set up camp for the night in a library.

She discovers, to his chagrin and her delight, that Megamind is very fond of romance novels.

They set up camp in reading room, one near the center of the building with no out-facing windows. There's a fireplace and though the night isn't exactly cold, reading by firelight is far more satisfying than reading by flashlight.

The chairs are comfortable and plush, if dusty. The room is very quiet save for the occasional sound of a page turning and the crackle of the fire.

She could get very used to this.

"Hey."

Megamind looks up from his book, green eyes meeting hers. "Yes?"

And then very suddenly she's not sure at all, of this; surely if he wanted gloves he'd have found some? The damn things might not even fit and somehow she hadn't thought of that at all until this moment. Her face feels hot and her stomach has tied itself in a knot when she wasn't paying attention and—good god, she's never been tongue-tied in her _life_ , what the hell is this?

"I, um. I. I found these." Roxanne swallows, trying to steady her high, shaky voice. "Today. In the mall, I mean. When were in the mall. And, ah. I thought. Of you. You know, because of the—" she waves a hand vaguely at him "—the motorcycle jacket and the. Spikes and. Um. Well, here."

She'd wrapped them in brown packaging paper and shoves the bundle into his hands now before retreating back to her side of the fire.

The grin that spreads across his face as he lifts them out and then excitedly tugs them on, the sheer joy in his eyes, leaves her breathless and thinking, maybe, he's not all wounds and armor after all.

Thinking it's very worth it, to show him the good of the world.

Wondering what he would say if she told him that his smile, that his _happiness_ , have become the best thing in her world.

* * *

The next small town seems utterly deserted, of living or dead. It still reeks of rot, but the whole world does these days. Wayne takes Hal and Bernard to look for guns, since they're beginning to run low on ammunition. Roxanne and Megamind head to the grocery store to replenish their stock of canned food.

On the way out, through the back of the store, she sees a mall at the far end of the street. Roxanne smiles at Megamind. "Wanna go see if they have a bookstore?"

There. _That_ was the smile that sent her heart racing.

They do find a bookstore. Megamind is appalled at their romance selection.

"Fifty Shades of Fucked Up, they should have called it. She did _no_ research, it's entirely inaccurate."

Roxanne lets out a slow, careful breath. "You, um. You're—into that, ah. That kind of stuff?"

She is trying, very hard to sound casual but her voice is too high and a little trembly. Megamind turns slowly to look at her and she feels her face fill with color. He, too, is blushing, going purple across his cheekbones.

"I've never—I mean, I've only heard—read—things—I don't—I haven't." He shuts his eyes and presses his lips together, then turns away from her, back to the shelf, carefully and precisely aligning the spines of the books in front of him. "I've never had the. Opportunity. To do anything, ah. Like that. But." He holds the edge of the shelf, very carefully, as if he has no idea at all what to do with his hands. His shoulders are stiff, spine rigid. "I've, ah. Always been curious. You could say."

She's grinning at him, and when he turns around to look at her he smiles, shy and sweet, in return.

They make a few selections, quietly drifting together through the aisles of books, and as they leave the bookstore Roxanne's mind is not at all on her surroundings. She walks around the corner at the end of the long hall, Megamind trailing just behind her, and freezes in her tracks.

The open area that had once been the food court is full, end to end, with zombies.

Almost as one, the mass of dead faces turn towards her and the silence erupts with a chorus of awful gurgling, hissing growls. The herd shambles towards her and Roxanne can't breathe, can't move—a hand closes hard around her arm and wrenches her backwards. Roxanne stumbles into him, but Megamind maintains his grip and she finds her footing as he pulls her into him and around the corner.

The door at the far end of the hall is open, sunlight streaming in, and a single lone zombie shuffling along through the motes of dust. It turns towards them as they come running around the corner. But Megamind heads not for that door but the for the one that's closed, along the wall just in front of them. He yanks it open—

"Megamind—" Roxanne says, low and urgent, "come _on_ , we—"

"We don't run towards danger, Miss Ritchi."

( _Good girls don't run_ —)

It's the smallest closet in existence, lined with shelves of cleaning chemicals, the floor entirely taken up by a faded yellow mop bucket on wheels. There's a mop in it, and several inches of grimy water. Megamind hauls it out, gives it a kick that sends it spinning and sloshing down the hall towards the open doors at the far end, and then steps into the closet, hauling Roxanne in after him.

The room smells of pine sol and bleach and dirty mop water and, very soon, two sweaty not-very-washed people. Their harsh breathing seems loud, for a few seconds, until the rising moans and snarls of the dead shuffling by drown out any sounds at all.

It is a large herd. Zombies do not move with great speed. It takes quite some time for them to pass.

Maybe it's the white-noise static of the herd. Maybe it's the dark. Maybe it's their closeness in the crowded space. Maybe there's just not much _air_ , in here.

He's still holding her. He has one arm around her, hand splayed across the small of her back.

She can't seem get that line out of her head, her mind is repeating it like a broken record; like the world's shortest song set on endless repeat.

(— _towards danger, we don't run_ —)

( _Towards the battle, though her cameraman had vanished long ago and she's filming the fight herself, Roxanne Ritchi live and on scene—)_

There is no space between them, none at all. Her breasts are flattened against his chest and she's resting her face in the curve of his neck.

( _Good girls don't_ —)

Oh, except—maybe they _do_.

She nuzzles his neck, softly at first. Her heart is pounding and she feel like the world is dangerously blurred around the edges, here so close to him that she can feel his heart hammering like her own. She feels him shift against her, a little, his hand flexing over her spine and his breath shuddering through him. He doesn't push her away. He slides his hand down, caressing her hip.

 _Yes_. She has asked, and his answer is _yes_.

Roxanne tilts her head, lips brushing over the sharp edge of his collarbone, and opens her mouth and bites him, gently but with intent. She feels more than hears the rough noise he makes. Runs her tongue over his skin, over the leaping pulse at the base of his throat, filling herself with the taste of him.

Megamind tangles one hand in her hair, and lifts her head. His breath is warm on her face and she finds his mouth in the dark and kisses him, feeling the hum of the moan that vibrates through him, knowing she's making hungry little noises of her own. She rocks her hips into him, artless and urgent, needing to feel him there—needing to feel him _everywhere_ —

The voice of reason tries to intrude with the thought of, _You can't have sex standing up in a mop closet with a horde of zombies just beyond the door_ , and Roxanne shoves reason viciously aside, angling his head for better access and exploring the heat of his mouth with her tongue while her hands stroke the soft skin of his skull. Megamind is kissing her back, just as greedy for her as she is for him. He has one hand fisted in her hair and the other, the one that had been splayed across her back, slides down and grips her ass, squeezing and then rocking her into him as he slowly begins to move his hips against her.

The voice of reason may have been easily shoved aside, but the voices of Wayne and Hal and Bernard calling her name are like a bucket of ice water across her senses.

She breaks the kiss, and for a moment they stay close, sharing each breath. Megamind's hand, in her hair, slides down the back of her head in a slow caress and Roxanne leans forward, pressing her face into his shoulder, wishing with every fiber of her being that she could stay there forever.

* * *

The group follows the road out of town into the forested land beyond the last houses and as late afternoon hits they cross an overpass over a river. They leave the road and follow the banks upstream into the trees until they're well away from any zombies that might wander across the overpass during the night. Wayne begins rigging up chains through the trees at thigh-height, to catch any zombies that might try the forest anyway. The rest of them leave their things in the clearing and head to the river.

Roxanne peels off her shoes and socks and rolls up the legs of her pants and wading out into the cold water up to her knees.

Hal and Bernard have settle down on the bank, passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth. She is acutely, _achingly_ aware of Megamind, off to her right, who has also settled down on the bank with his bare feet stretched out in the water and a book in his hand.

In the river with the current tugging at her legs and cold water soothing her sore feet, Roxanne lets her head drop and shuts her eyes.

This moment is so far removed from the heated darkness, the urgency and need, that she feels as though she's torn between two worlds; as if either that moment in the closet didn't really exist, or that none of this around her is real.

She sways a little as a wave of heat and dizziness wash through her, planting her feet firmly in the cool sand to hold her balance, the strong current of river water pulling at her legs—

( _Darkness and wind heavy with the smell of the sea; the endless howl of the storm; cold ocean water up to her knees, the waves pushing and tugging. The rough bark of the palm scraping her back through her thin shirt, soaked with rain water. Megamind's hand, in hers, her anchor in the storm_ —)

Roxanne shivers violently shaking her head and rubbing her hands hard over her face. The world is evening birdsong and the cold smell of clean river water. The world is—

She misses whatever comment Hal had begun with, but his shrill derisive laughter ringing out over the soft gurgle of the river and birdsong from the forest snaps her immediately back to the here and now.

"A _romance novel_ , are you kidding me? That bullshit's for _girls_."

Roxanne turns to look over her shoulder.

Hal stands over Megamind with both hands planted on his hips, grinning down at the alien, who is flushed lavender but has narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. His knuckles are white where they grip the paperback.

Roxanne turns fully around to face them.

"Stop it," she says, her voice quiet and cold. "Leave him alone, Hal."

He scoffs, swaying a little drunkenly. "No, this is _funny_ —"

She draws a breath, feeling something dangerous and dark swelling inside of her. "Harold Stewart. If you don't stop, right now, I'm going to make you."

Hal furrows his brow, staring at her in disbelief. He is drunk, and stupid, and maybe it's not even that big a deal, but—

"This guy's a _freak_ , Roxie, just look at—"

She closes the distance between them, striding forward out of the river, and swings her fist at his face. Her hand smashes into his jaw. Sharp pain shoots through her fingers. Hal stumbles away from her, cradling his face and shouting.

Megamind leaps to his feet, grabbing her elbow and pulling her away as she tries to lunge forward again. Wayne and Bernard rush in.

"I didn't _do_ anything," Hal wails, loud and drunk, eyes wide with shock and pain. "I didn't even _do_ anything—"

Wayne looks at Megamind, nodding sharply up the hill towards the camp, and Megamind pulls Roxanne away.

"No," she says, "I'm going to hit him again—that _jerk_ , that complete—"

"Roxanne, calm down. It's fine."

She snaps a glare at him, fury tight and hot in her chest. "It's _not_ fine—"

"It is," he says, relentless. "Come sit down."

"I really want to hit him again," she mutters, and Megamind lets out a small laugh, shaking his head at her in disbelief. She lets him guide her to the circle of their packs, and complies when he has her sit down. It's dark, here under the trees. The late light of evening is full of gray shadows.

It's been one hell of a long day.

Roxanne lets out a breath, feeling the sudden weight of exhaustion settle heavily onto her shoulders, smothering her anger.

Megamind watches the tension ease from her body, and sits down beside her. "Let me see your hand."

He checks for breaks, being very gentle. "It's all right," he says. "Nothing's broken. Be careful with it and it should be better by tomorrow night."

He places her hand down carefully on her leg, then reaches for her other hand and presses gently on her fingers until she curls them into her palm. Megamind moves her thumb over the front of them, then releases her and sits back.

"There. That's how you punch. You might still break something, if you hit them wrong—or too hard—" his mouth curves in a faint smile "—but it'll be a chance, not a guarantee."

Roxanne lowers her hand, feeling a little self conscious and glad for the dark so he can't see her blush.

"Megamind," she says softly, and waits until he lifts his eyes to hers. "Why didn't you try to stop him?"

His eyes flick up to her face then away. "It's never wise to fight drunk people," he says.

She wants to tell him he's not _alone_ , that he doesn't have to be, that she's—

Roxanne lets out a breath. "I think there's more to it than that."

Megamind presses his lips together and then shuts his eyes. It is a long time before he speaks and when he does his voice is very low. "When you...when you have to fight, everyone, all the time, just...just to _exist_ , in peace... Well. Eventually you get tired of fighting. Eventually, you get...the message."

There is sudden, sharp, pain in her heart, as if someone's slipped a blade into it. "What message?" she asks, feeling like she already knows the answer.

He makes a sound that might have been a laugh. "Go away," he says. "We don't want to play with you. Stop bothering people. You're nothing but a burden. Why don't you do the world a favor and just lay down and die?"

Roxanne isn't aware of deciding to do it, but finds that she has taken his hand in hers, clasping tightly palm to palm.

"I don't think any of those things," she says, roughly, trying to speak clearly around the tightness in her throat, the pain in her chest. "About you."

Megamind's eyes meet hers, then drop back down to their joined hands. "I know."

* * *

Hal apologizes, the next morning, sounding so incredibly sulky that Roxanne is tempted to try hitting him again. Megamind seems to accept it, though, not wanting to stir up anymore trouble. Wayne pulls Roxanne aside to tell her that he's banned alcohol from now on.

The air of the group is still awkward and strained, with Megamind and Roxanne hanging behind the others for most of the day and Hal shooting suspicious looks back at them and it takes every bit of willpower Roxanne has not to simply take Megamind's hand and walk away with him.

Their chosen camp for the night is a once-fancy hotel, the parking lot of which is mostly barricaded by tall cast iron fencing. They scope the building for any signs of open door or holes in the structure through which zombies may have penetrated, but find none.

The sky is growing dark by the time they reconvene at the front. Wayne levers the doors open and they move inside carefully.

The large foyer seems untouched by the dead. A layer of dust covers every surface though there is a large hole in the roof and a pile of plaster and broken boards on the floor beneath it. Wayne, who has wandered over to check things out, glances up and then gasps.

"Guys! Guys c'mere, look! Shooting stars!" He laughs in delight, turning to look for Bernard who is watching him with a grin. "A whole bunch of 'em!"

They gather underneath the opening, heads tilted up, watching the bright streaks across the dark sky. Roxanne glances at Megamind, and finds that he is staring back at her with a soft smile on his face.

"Oh my god I just had, like, the _best_ idea," Hal says suddenly, shattering the peace of the moment. He turns excitedly to Megamind. "Give us your fireworks."

Megamind looks back at him incredulously. "Are you insane? No."

"Man, come on, I just want one. It's gonna be so cool! That's a meteor shower, right? Think about how awesome it'd look to set off fireworks with that!"

"I said no," Megamind says again, turning his back on Hal and shifting his backpack into his arms. "You'll attract every zombie in the area and it's too dark to move again safely tonight."

There is very little warning. Roxanne knows, because she's been watching carefully in case she needs to step in again. Hal gives no sign as to his intent, simply lunges the moment Megamind's back is turned, grasping for the dangling strap of the backpack with one hand and shoving Megamind forward with the other.

Megamind stumbles, instinctively flailing his arms to keep himself upright, and the pack slips free into Hal's grasp. He dances backwards, laughing triumphantly. Bernard steps in to grapple with Megamind and keep him from going after Hal.

"Let. Me. _Go!_ "

Roxanne is already moving to intervene and Wayne steps forward holds her back, one arm out to prevent her from running forward and she is so utterly _shocked_ she actually stops.

Hal throws open the flap and dumps Megamind's pack out on the floor. Books, clothing, his gloves—fireworks and empty cans, all come spilling out across the floor.

And last, from it's careful hidden place at the very bottom, a soft pillow in the shape of a fish.

Hal stares down at it incredulously. "What the hell?" He bends over to pick it up, laughing, and Megamind lunges at him, snarling, face twisted in fury.

"Don't touch it—don't you dare—"

But before he can get across the space, Bernard sticks one leg out and trips him, sending him sprawling. Roxanne finally manages to shove past Wayne and rushes to Megamind's side.

"Oh," says Hal, bending to grab the pillow. "Oh, this is just. Too precious. You sleep with a _fish doll_? What the _fuck,_ man?" He laughs, grinning. "Oh, wait now I get it. You really are a freak."

Roxanne helps Megamind to his feet, fixing Hal with a fierce glare. "Hal, you slime ball, if you don't put it down _right now_ —"

His face twists in sudden fury. "What, you going to _hit me_ again, Roxie? I forgot—you _like_ the freak."

Hal grips the pillow at each end and yanks his arms apart. There is a soft ripping sound as the middle of the fish tears open and soft white fluff bursts out.

Megamind makes a deeply wounded sound, as if it's his own body that's been torn open.

"Oh," says Hal, grinning. "Whoops."

Roxanne does hit him again.

She punches him the face the way Megamind showed her but Hal catches her wrist, sneering at her—until her knee slams into his groin and he lets go of her with a shriek of pain, crumpling to the floor.

Bernard steps up towards her with intent, an angry scowl on his face, but Roxanne rears back with her fist and Wayne intervenes at last.

"Enough, _enough!_ Roxanne, _stop_."

Behind him, Megamind is on his knees, slowly gathering the fallen stuffing and the pillow, cradling it to his chest with one arm while he shoves the rest of his things back into his pack and then stands, staggering a little, before turning and heading down the dark hall at the other end of the room.

She stares at her cousin incredulously, ready to punch him, too. "Stop? _Stop_? What the _fuck_ , Wayne? Don't you _ever_ hold me back like that—"

Wayne throws his arms out. "Roxanne I was trying to _protect_ you, I didn't want you to get hurt in the middle of—"

"You're an _asshole_ , Wayne Scott," Roxanne tells him, then leaves him sputtering excuses to follow Megamind.

* * *

She finds him in the farthest room. The door is shut and there's no answer to her soft knock but when she tries the knob it isn't locked.

The room is dark. When she pushes the door open a little, and waits for her vision to adjust, she sees him curled on the bed, green eyes bright in the gloom, watching her.

"Can I come in?"

There is a silence, and then, very softly, "All right."

She locks the door behind her, and sits beside him on the bed. The thin mattress creaks and dips beneath her slight weight.

He's been crying. He's _still_ crying. He has the torn pillow clutched to his chest.

"I'm sorry," he says softly as she sits down. "I know it's stupid. I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

She's rubs her hand in slow circles over his back and he begins to relax under her touch. "It's not stupid. And nothing is wrong with you," she says, soft and fierce at the same time. Green eyes gleam in the dark, staring up at her. "Megamind. Nothing is wrong with you."

" _Everything_ is wrong, I'm _broken_ , I'm a mess—"

"Being broken, and being a mess, isn't wrong."

His back trembles under her hand and he inhales sharply a couple of times. "You're—the only one—I've ever met—that believes that."

He's struggling not to cry again. Roxanne soothes her hand over his spine, across his shoulders. "There aren't many good people left in the world," she says at last.

Megamind sits up, wiping his eyes, cradling the pillow still carefully against his chest. There's white stuffing falling out of the tear in it, and as delicately as if he's performing surgery, his long blue fingers poke it back into the fabric.

"Thank you. For. Getting him away from them."

"Does he have a name?"

Megamind's mouth curves up in the saddest most broken smile Roxanne has ever seen. "Minnie," he says, then shuts his eyes and clenches his teeth, inhaling sharply. "I just...I really _miss_ him."

"Is he named after someone you knew?"

There is a pause, a moment of silence and she has the sense that—there's almost a _sound_ , or an absence of sound like the world's holding its breath but—

Megamind's face twists in confusion as he stares down at the pillow. "I...I don't know..."

Roxanne reaches for her bag, rummages around for a minute and lifts out her sewing kit. "I can fix him, if you'll let me. Can you get the light?"

Megamind flicks on the little bedside lamp and hands her the pillow—Minnie—as carefully as if he's passing over a wounded creature. His fingers are trembling a little when he pulls them back and he folds his hands together in front of his face. His eyes flick up to hers. "Please be careful."

Roxanne smiles at him. "I will be." She pulls out a tiny spool of shining golden thread and works it into the needle. "My Great Aunt Rachel taught me to sew," she says quietly as she works. "She was...hmmm. I've never tried to describe her to anyone before. She's hard to contain with sentences. One of those people who are just—entirely and unapologetically _themselves_ you know?"

Megamind hums a sound of agreement and had she looked up, at that moment, Roxanne would have seen the amused curve of his smile as he watched her. "Yes," he says. "I know."

Roxanne fits stuffing into torn fabric, works the needle through carefully, and begins closing the wound. "She'd been all over the world and her house was full of just—the most random, weird stuff. I loved it. I loved _her_. She was...well. The only really good person I had, growing up."

The line of gold thread, thicker than the material of the pillow, winds its way across the side of the fish like a shining scar.

"She knew so many strange, interesting things." Her eyes flick up to his face, then back down to her work. "Have you ever heard," she says casually, "about the Japanese art of kintsugi?"

"No."

"Well. It's a bit of philosophy as much as it is art." The needle weaves through the pillow, narrowing the hole, golden thread shining softly in the lamp light. "Whenever something broke—a vase, or a plate, or a cup—Aunt Rachel said they did this a lot for tea sets—whenever something broke, they kept the pieces and fit them back together again. Only they didn't use just any old glue. They used gold."

The needle reaches the end of the tear, and she knots the thread and snips off the loose end. Runs her palm softly along the thick band.

"Because," Roxanne says, without looking at him, trying very hard to keep her voice steady, "because they believed that." Her voice breaks, and she has to stop for a moment and breathe. There's something like a bruise inside her chest where her heart should be. "They believed that just because something has suffered, that doesn't make it ugly. It makes it beautiful. Not broken."

Megamind makes a sound, a strangled gasping choked of noise and then his arms close around her shoulders, and he holds her close, careful of the pillow in her lap.

He is trembling, awkward and tense and Roxanne thinks maybe he's never hugged anyone in his life and now. Fuck. _Now_ she's crying. Roxanne nudges him away, keeping one hand on his shoulder so he knows she's not rejecting him, and carefully sets aside the pillow. Megamind is watching with huge eyes, and she shifts towards him on the bed and pulls him into a real embrace, holding him as tight as she can, tucking her chin over his shoulder. Hesitant, uncertain, his arms close around her waist.

"I'm so sorry they did that to you," she says in a rough whisper, angry and aching. "I'm so sorry they hurt you."

Megamind turns his head and hides his face against her neck. She can feel his tears hot on her skin. He is silent for a long time, in her arms.

At last he straightens, sitting up and drawing away from her.

"I'm leaving. Tomorrow. I can't... I can't be around them."

Roxanne draws in a breath. Everything is tremulous and tentative, inside, but when she speaks her voice is quiet and firm.

"I'm staying with you," she says, and really she's _asking_ him though the question isn't _can I stay with you_ but rather _this is right, me and you;_ **us** _; this is right and I feel and I know you do to_.

She feels a bit like she's asking the universe, like she's stating aloud a theory of gravity, and Megamind—

Megamind shuts his eyes and lets out an unsteady breath and she watches his face as he struggles to hold on to his composure. "Yes," he whispers at last. "Yes. You're staying with me."

They sleep together, Minnie carefully placed on the bedside table. Roxanne gently pushes Megamind down onto the mattress, on his side facing away from her, and fits herself around him like a spoon. He curls up a little, shifting his head so that she fits perfectly behind him, her cheek resting partly on the pillow and partly on his shoulder. Hand over his heart.

For a moment—

For a moment, dozing and drifting, it isn't leather and musky body odor she smells but salt water on the wind; and not their breath in the hushed stillness of the room but the soft crash of waves against sand—

( _Pretending to be asleep, with her arms around him, worried he's going to feel her heart pounding against his back and realize she's faking. She's pressed so very close and he shifts, carefully in her arms. For a moment she forgets to breathe. But then his fingers slip between hers and a feeling rises up, in her heart, tightening her breath—oh she doesn't_ care _if they ever get rescued so long as she can have this, can have him, here in her arms foreve_ r—)

The sound, falling asleep there curled around him on the thin mattress—the high ringing _sound_ , the _singing_ ; sleepily, like a dream-thought, she thinks, _...Whales_? And—

( _Dark, and immense, like flippered black mountains crashing in the water all around them_ —)

The single note resonates through her, harmonizing with her breath, and his, and the steady drumming of his heart under her palm.

* * *

 _Note: The Japanese technique Roxanne talks about is called kintsugi (golden joinery) or kintsukuroi (golden repair). It's an art wherein gold, silver, or platinum are used to repair broken pottery. As a philosophy, it's meant to treat something's brokenness as beautiful; to show that the history of suffering is not ugly and that the broken thing is actually more beautiful and more valuable for its flaws. It's something that I find very personally impactful, but also there's nothing I can think of that better describes Megamind, and the way Roxanne feels about him._


	4. Interlude: Setback

Minion knew there was trouble as soon as he pulled the car into the Lair. The radio was blasting AC/DC so loud he could feel his suit vibrating. That was _invention_ music, not finalizing-details music.

But when he came into the work room, box of doughnuts in hand, Megamind was bent over the work bench, his hands steady and swiftly assembling some components on the table while the entire rest of his body moved and swayed energetically along with the music. His brow was furrowed in concentration and Minion couldn't see his eyes through the dark safety goggles but he had a certain smile that Minion knew very well.

It was the little grin of devious delight at some evil idea coming together in complete perfection. A satisfied, excited, wicked little smile that never failed to lift Minion's heart. Sir was _happy_. That's what that smile meant.

So things had not gone horribly wrong with their other plan, as Minion had first feared. Sir had simply thought of something _better_. Or at least, more fun, which often amounted to the same thing.

Minion dialed the music down to conversation level and carried the doughnuts over to the work table, opening the box and placing it at the edge of the table, away from the assorted pieces of the device. Megamind continued singing under his breath, swaying his hips and using a soldering iron to fuse small components to what looked like a computer board of some kind.

Minion's gaze roved over the table, brows lifting as he took in just how much work Megamind had already completed. The table held a number of vials, either chemical or biological Minion wasn't sure, the currently unassembled pieces of the gun Megamind was working on, another entirely assembled gun, and blueprints and calculations scattered everywhere in the chaos.

Also on the table, under a small glass dome, was the brainbot's most prized possession: a scrap of Metro Man's cape, torn away from the hero during a battle and much treasured and jealously guarded by the proud bots ever since.

Minion lifted his eyes to the rafters, where the entire swarm of bots seemed to be gathered, watching the proceedings with suspicious, narrow eyestalks.

Hmm.

"So, I take it we're not going to keep working on the reset button?"

Megamind scowled, setting aside the soldering iron. "Pah. _No_ , Minion, we are not."

"I thought we were making good progress, Sir." It was far more complex than their normal work, and Minion had been greatly enjoying the challenge.

Megamind scoffed, and shook his head, sliding the goggles onto his forehead and reaching for a doughnut. "I don't like the theory," he said at last, swallowing a mouth of pastry and glancing up at Minion. "Wishes are not _science_ , Minion. It's too...mmm." Crumbs scattered as he waved his hand. "Unpredictable, too chaotic. Even for supervillains. Too much can go wrong."

Minion sighed. "Brainwaves, Sir, not _wishes_. I don't believe it's as unpredictable as you think."

Megamind smiled at him. "I know. I do _read_ what you give me, Minion. We're not throwing it away, just shoving it to the back burner."

"So what are we doing instead?"

Megamind grinned at him, and gestured at the table. "Behold, Minion! The key to defeating Metro Man at last!" He dropped his half-eaten doughnut back into the box and lifted the new gun reverently with both hands. "I call it—the setback gun!"

"Brilliant, Sir! And...what does it _do_?"

Megamind looked up at him, brow furrowed over narrow green eyes and a sly smile. "It takes away his powers, Minion."

Minion went very still, staring back at his Sir with wide eyes. "That...that—"

"Temporarily, of course," Megamind purred, stroking the barrel of the gun as if it were a brainbot. "We don't want to do anything too drastic and end up with the League of Heroes after us."

"Can you...do that? Sir?"

"I can do anything, Minion," he said softly. "We'll need a test subject, though, something organic I can infuse with Metro Man's powers."

"How do you plan to do _that_?"

Megamind waved casually at the other gun on the table, the one sitting by the brainbot's piece of cape. "That was the easy part, I finished that last night. We just need something to test it all on. Something organic."

Minion made a sick, unhappy face and Megamind sighed.

"Not something with a mind or a nervous system, Minion. We're mad scientists, not barbarians."

Megamind tapped his fingers against his lips, then his eyes widened, bright with sudden glee, and wide grin spread across his face as he began to laugh. "A ham. Yes. Go and get me a _ham_ , Minion. Or a big slab of bo-log-na."

When Minion returned with a ham, Megamind had fashioned a miniature cape in Metro Man's colors from some of the scraps out of Minion's workshop. The brainbots were again in possession of their prize piece of the real cape, but remained in the rafters out of pique, passing the scrap of fabric back and forth between themselves as if to reassure that their Daddy had not damaged it.

They infused the ham.

Minion was torn between, _This is the_ weirdest _thing we have ever done,_ and, _This is actually really brilliant_.

They tested it, by attempting to carve a slice—and the knife slid off. Megamind chortled, giddy with excitement and anticipation.

He actually skipped back to the barrier they'd set up to fire from. Megamind checked the settings on the gun, then knelt down, resting the barrel on the edge of the barrier and lining up the target. The barrel began to glow a deep violet, glinting off the dark safety goggles Megamind pulled back down over his eyes.

"Fancy a ham sandwich, fillet mignon?"

Minion eyed the distant chunk of meat dubiously. "...You really think it's safe to _eat_ the Metro Ham, after everything we're doing to it?"

"Hmm. Fair point. For all we know, it'd turn us in to dirty do-gooders."

After all of that, the actual firing seemed rather anticlimactic. The gun emitted a pulse of deep indigo light, which flickered around the ham and then faded.

This time the knife sliced right through, cleaving the ham in two halves which toppled to the floor on either side of the stool they'd propped it up on.

Megamind stared down at the halves, then released a slow breath and carefully placed the knife on the stool.

"Well," he said quietly. "That's that. We'll want Miss Ritchi for this, definitely. And I think some sort of...cage. One the brainbots can drop around Metro Man, then fly away with. We'll have to find someplace to dump him for a few days until his powers come back."

There was a little silence, and then Megamind looked up, meeting Minion's eyes, his expression searching and uncertain.

Minion, who knew very well what was troubling him, smiled and rested one hand on Megamind's small shoulder.

 _You are better than you know. You have_ always _been better than you know_. _Maybe one day, they'll see what I see, and we won't have to be...bad, anymore._

They stood together for several quiet moments, then Megamind swallowed, and shook his head, nudging one half of the ham with his boot. "Make sure to burn this. You're right, letting anything eat it would be foolish."

"So..." Minion lifted his eyes to the enormous, complex array of machines and cords and pipes crowding the area. "What do you want me to do with the reset button, Sir? I can take everything apart, but—" But it had been a hugely complicated pain in the ass to set it all up in the first place, and if Megamind ever wanted to try it again Minion would rather not have to repeat the process.

Megamind seemed to share his reluctance, looking over the machine with sigh. "Oh, we'll just take out the power cell and unplug the damn thing. Actually, you should probably _remove_ the power cords, just in case any brainbots try to be helpful and plug it back in."

He leaned the setback gun against his shoulder, pushing the goggles back up onto his forehead.

"The _last_ thing we need is for it go off in the Lair."


End file.
